


The Dragon Lies Bleeding

by Windwyrm



Series: Distand Lands [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Death, Gen, Graphic Description, dragon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23363551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windwyrm/pseuds/Windwyrm
Summary: Hunting dragons is what she knows, hunting dragons is what she will always do.[ OC: Kagarsha ]
Series: Distand Lands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680400
Kudos: 4





	The Dragon Lies Bleeding

Three hundred sixty nine.  
  


What an idiotic number.  
  


And even more idiotic was the fact that it did not matter.  
  


The orc woman took a puff of her intricately carved pipe, flashing a toothy grin as the smoke left her nostrils. Next to her was a spear, its tip thrust in the ground, and she appeared to take immense delight in the suffering of her prey.

Three hundred and sixty ninth, this one would be. Struggling against the weighted net, shrieking in ways that would have curdled the blood of the average person, but the orc had heard worse. Its red scales glistened in the sun, its taut skin quivering with every muscle movement as it thrashed about in the soft soil. Not the biggest she caught, but nowhere near the smallest, either.

And yet it did not matter. It did not bring anyone back. It did not soothe her. It offered nothing. Nothing, except a shiny coin on the black market for its hide.  
  


_“You are heading down a dark path, Kagarsha,”_ the shaman had told her five years ago, his blind eyes glistening with the reflected torchlight, barely visible under the carved dragon skull the orc adorned as a ritual mask. He had held her hands, patted them kindly, but they did nothing to lessen her pain. Neither did his words. _“Blind vengeance will only consume you, not change anything.”_

_“What do you know of my pain, shaman?”_ she spat the words out, fighting back the ache in her throat.

He had answered simply, kindly. _“I know enough.”_  
  


Her smirk faded to a snarl at the memory, and with an angry snort, she took her pipe out and tapped it against her fingers, shaking out the ash. She put the pipe in one of her belt pouches, admiring the red dragon in silence.  
  


The shaman knew nothing, simply spoke in kind, blank riddles as all shamans do.

How could he know of the devouring pain gnawing at her everything, her very essence, since the fall of Grim Batol? He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

A proud Dragonmaw old enough to remember the times on Draenor, of the lush Draenor, riding the skies atop rylaks, hunting beasts larger than ever roamed Azeroth. Times when Zuluhed had been naught but a shaman, times when the orcs had been of their own free mind. The shaman, while old, took better to the loss of the ancestral lands. He had the elements for company and comfort on Azeroth.

Kagarsha had nothing. Her rylak, her homeland, were long gone. And when Blackhand’s Horde had conquered these new, strange lands, and when Zuluhed had subdued the Dragon Queen and her brood, it seemed tides would change. The shaman would never understand what it was like to lose everything yet again.

And more importantly, never understand the pain of losing a mate and a newborn child because of those flying rats.  
  


Of course, Kagarsha had been naive enough to believe that the Dragon Queen would feel equal pain at the prospect of losing her own children. How foolish, how stupid...

One whelp, one dozen, one hundred… Three hundred sixty nine… 

All the same for Alexstrasza.

It did not matter.

The rat queen still had mates to choose from, could still make more children in a single clutch than Kagarsha has hunted in six years. Of course it would mean nothing to her to lose a handful. She never held them, never rocked them to sleep on her breast as they fussed, never lost nights watching over her single sickly runt, making sure it was still breathing, never had to take a child to the healers, begging them for help. She never had to cling onto fading memories like a desperate beast clawing at a cliff, cursing the gods of new and old that she had not been allowed even one more day with her child. After all, the Dragon Queen could always go out and make herself a new clutch of them as she pleased.

And yet Kagarsha had hoped… just one more would make the difference… Just one more would hurt the dragon for even a fragment of the pain Kagarsha still felt. And with every new red whelp killed, the realization that it would never matter only angered her further. Still surrounded by offspring and lovers, Alexstrasza would never even think back of the lives she had taken, of the families she had broken, not even of her own children whom she had left behind. And why would she?  
  


The orc spat in disgust and picked up her spear, walking towards the dragon slowly. She allowed herself the pleasure of smirking once more.

“Pathetic little thing,” she cooed on a disgustingly sweet tone, nudging the dragon in its ribs with the sharp edge of her spear. “What an unfortunate predicament. Dying all alone, without your mother by your side, hmm?” She grabbed the dragon by one of its horns, lifting its head.

Yellow eye focused on the orc, the narrow pupil darting about frantically. The beast breathed shallowly, quickly, the underside of its throat quivering. Kagarsha snorted. She almost pitied the poor things whenever she caught them.

Almost.

All amusement fading from her face, she lifted the dragon’s head higher. She drew no pleasure from watching the beasts panic and suffer, a swift slash to the throat and it would be over soon.

A swift-

_Slash._  
  


The orc let out a harsh, angry scream, and stepped back from the dragon, the back of her right arm pressed against the right side of her face. The damned dragon had managed to get a limb loose and strike at her, and was now struggling to free itself from the net entirely. Snarling, Kagarsha grabbed the spear with both hands, hitting the dragon over the head with the metal shaft, the raw fury in her strike enough to daze the beast.  
  


Swearing under her breath, she ripped a chunk of her cloak and pressed the cloth against her cheek. Warm blood had already soaked her neck, her undershirt. She could not tell how large or deep the wound was, the pain was all over the place, and even more so, her sheer anger clouded it.

Foolish. That’s what she had been. Foolish enough to underestimate the beast. Now it was clear, it was the equivalent of a teenager. Fiery, brash, reckless. Not the stupid whelps or the sluggish older dragons she had killed up until now. Well. Live and learn, as they say.  
  


Her ears twitched as they picked the sound of the dragon coming to. She smiled with the side of her face that still responded.

Good.  
  


She reached for her spear and turned around to face it, her one eye wide with fury, nostrils flared.

The beast had freed itself from the weighted net, fluttering a wing about while the other rested pitifully, broken, maimed. Seeing its state filled the orc with joy, and she lifted the spear above her head, letting out a triumphant yell so loud her lungs felt on fire.

The beast stood up on unsteady legs, letting loose a ground shattering roar of its own. Opening its one good wing, it took in a deep breath, its maw opening wide to unleash a torrent of consuming flame.

It shrieked loudly in response to the spear now embedded in the back of its throat.

“I still got my aim, you useless rat,” Kagarsha screamed, what was visible of her face twisted in an angry snarl.

The beast struggled to tear the spear out. Good. Good, Kagarsha laughed hysterically. They all did that. They all brought their own demise quicker, succumbing to panic and fear, tearing the spears and their own flesh and blood out in one last desperate attempt. That pain, she knew all too well. Except she would never be fortunate enough to ever be killed by the jagged daggers tearing at her very soul.

But this useless beast would soon succumb.  
  


_Good._  
  


The beast still shrieked, thrashing about in agony, but it would never get up again. And with the thrill of the battle fading, the orc’s senses started focusing on the burning pain in her cheek. Pressing her head against her shoulder to keep the cloth in place, her trembling hands reached for the cloak again to rip another strip off. She threw it in the growing puddle of the dragon’s blood, dragging it around with the tip of her boot until it was fully soaked in the beast’s blood. She snarled at the dying dragon as she bent down to grab the dripping cloth, pressing it against her face. An old Dragonmaw trick, soaking bandages in the healing blood of the red dragons, it had always helped her mend any wounds she received during her hunts.

Yet now, it did little to soothe the searing pain. She would need a healer to see it this time around. Whatever was left of it. With a shrill whistle, she called for her worg, and the black beast came running.

Kagarsha pulled herself up in the saddle and almost fell off the other side, but quickly balanced herself, holding onto the leather harness. “Come on, old man,” she muttered in a hoarse tone, her cheek too painful to move properly anymore. It did not matter, the worg knew where to run, and would need little verbal input.  
  


The pain came in waves, and the woman gritted her teeth against the worst of it. And yet, it had nothing on the pain she had felt for years, now. The insatiable pain, there to stay and gnaw at her no matter how many damned dead dragons she threw at the abyss of her soul.

The Dragon Queen would indeed never feel that pain. It was unfair, and it still angered the orc, but unfairness and pain was everything she knew by this point, the only maddening truth the world seemed to adhere to. And if she had to kill hundreds more of those damned rats, then all the better.

It would never bring her mate back. It would never bring her daughter back. But, by the Ancestors, each and every one of the cursed reds that Kagarsha caught was one less dragon that may hurt somebody else. 

And besides, it seemed Kagarsha would need a new face, and the reds had plenty to spare.


End file.
